Tina Sibley wrote:Hi DeMing
Our bodies can seem to have a mind of their own when we speak in public. This is because adrenaline takes over, causing symptoms such as butterflies in the tummy, shaking, racing pulse and so on. The usual advice is a few deep breaths but, while this is good, there is more you can do. Our physiology and posture can go a long way to help. You will feel more stable and grounded if your feet are evenly placed beneath your hips, ensuring that your knees are not locked, but relaxed. It's important to stand up straight and have your shoulders back and down - this not only looks better but feels better. If you're slightly bent forwards and your shoulders are forward and down, this cuts off your diaphragm, making it harder to breathe and the oxygen doesn't flow properly, causing all sorts of unwelcome symptoms. Having your shoulders back and down opens your diaphragm, it's easier to breathe and the symptoms will ease. There is a lot more to this but I didn't want to write war and peace!
I hope this helps.
Best Wishes
Tina
I could not agree more with what Tina said ! That should be a sticky on this forum.
Regrettably, this kind of advice is too often lumped together with new agey gibberish about light and love, to the point many people will just ignore the whole thing.
What I would like to add here is that if you want this approach to work, you need to work on the physical issues described above often and with great patience. If you only try to do it before the presentation, it won't work simply because building that level of control over your body takes time.
The way to do it is by observing what's happening in the body. Once you start being familiar with more subtle sensations, try to change your posture FROM THE INSIDE OUT. Like Tina said, shoulders will hopefully end up back and down, but it's essential that they fall into that position while you're focusing on elongating the spine. If you forcefully bring the shoulders back using the large superficial muscles (military style), you may end up looking alright to an outside observer, but in fact you'll have cut off the air flow even further by compressing and tightening the upper back.
Btw, the mental benefits of observing and becoming aware of pasterns in the body extend far beyond gaining the ability to control unwanted physical symptoms while speaking in public.